Playing old record player (2 RCA jacks) using modern mixer (1/4″ stereo jack)

I inherited a Technics SL-B300 and a TEAC AV-8520 receiver from a very good friend a few years ago, along with her entire record collection. As she had the system in the storage for 20 years, the player had a bad motor and disintegrated rubber belt. I was lucky to find a used motor online and replaced it a few years ago. The rubber belt is pretty standard; I got it from eBay.

After playing through the receiver for a few years, I decided to move the record player to my music studio, but there was a problem. I needed the receiver for my cable box, but I don’t want my TV to be in my music studio. I have a mixer in my studio, but it doesn’t have RCA inputs. What would an engineer do?

I modified the record player cable and converted the other end of it to a 1/4″ TRS (Stereo) jack instead. The modification is straightforward. Snip off the two RCA jacks (red and white) on the end of the record player’s cable that’s to be connected to the receiver. Strip off the insulators of both wires and combine the outer wires from both cables together, as such:

Solder the Red wire to the Tip of the 1/4″ jack, the White wire to the Ring of the 1/4″ jack, and the combined ground wire to the Sleeve of the 1/4″ jack. Alternatively, you could also solder your Black (ground) cable to the Sleeve of the 1/4″ jack, too:

Voila! Now you can play anything that uses the old school RCA cable using your mixer that takes Stereo 1/4″ jack.